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Bountiful To Continue Taxing Residents Through Power Company

Sorry for playing catch up on this. Things have been quite busy, lately.

About a month ago, the Bountiful Power & Light Director informed the City Council that facility upgrades would run about $1.8 million/year to pay off the bond for construction:

It’s way too early to know for sure, but Bountiful Light & Power rates could see a hike in the next year or two…

…“With a $17.5 million power budget, that would cost us about $1.8 million to pay off per year,” he said of a bond. “That could mean (a power rate increase) as high as 10 percent,” he said.

Interestingly enough, the city transfers over $1.8 million (closer to $2 million) from overcharged power users of the city-owned power company into city coffers each year. Unlike private utility companies (such as Rocky Mountain Power), municipal (city government owned) utilities receive no oversight/regulation from the Public Utilities Commission.

Thus, rather than letting the company use the $1.8 million it collects for the upgrades, the city would prefer to increase power rates in order to maintain it’s $2 million cloaked tax on residents and businesses in a down economy. And, no, there is no truth-in-taxation hearing required for such ‘rate’ increases.